Florida Fridays; The Great 2012 Florida Trip Part 5 (Biscayne National Park)

After the Shark Valley Loop Road in Everglades National Park I continued east on the Tamiami Trail to the Florida's Turnpike Extension south to Florida City. At the end of Canal Drive I visited Biscayne National Park along Biscayne Bay.

Biscayne National Park was created in the waters of Biscayne Bay in 1980. Much of Biscayne National Park is aquatic but it does encompass some of the Florida Keys south of Key Biscayne. The push for Biscayne National Park was largely due to the prospects of development on Elliot Key. In the 1950s a plan to build a bridge from Key Biscayne to connect Elliott Key and the rest of the Florida Keys was announced by the Dade County Planning Board. This led to the incorporation of the "City of Islandia" on Elliott Key which was largely just a glorified land grab. The potential for a possibly extended Overseas Highway was largely crushed by the creation of Biscayne National Monument in 1968 which later became Biscayne National Park in 1980.

The prospects of development along Biscayne Bay and the northern Florida Keys is long dead. The City of Islandia incorporation was dissolved by the state of Florida back in 2012. Today there isn't really much going along Biscayne Bay other than people boating or attempting to fish near the mangrove ridden shoreline. For what its worth I probably would rank Biscayne as my least favorite National Park. There isn't much to do at the visitor center area and the Overseas Highway offers way more variety hopping from Key to Key southward to Key West. Even exploring the Lower Keys by boat in my opinion is much more fun than up in Biscayne National Park. I guess the distant view of downtown Miami on a clear day is nice.

Comments

I-40 rockslide uncovers old debates on highway

The Asheville Citizen-Times continues to do a great job covering all the angles of the Interstate 40 Haywood County rock slide. An article in Sunday's edition provides a strong historical perspective on how the Pigeon River routing of Interstate 40 came about. And perhaps most strikingly, in an article that ran just prior to the highway's opening in the fall of 1968, how engineers from both Tennessee and North Carolina warned "...that slides would probably be a major problem along the route for many years." On February 12, 1969, not long after the Interstate opened, the first rock slide that would close I-40 occurred. Like many other Interstates within North Carolina, Interstate 40 through the mountains has a history prior to formation of the Interstate Highway System and was also a heated political battle between local communities. The discussion for a road that would eventually become Interstate 40 dates back to the 1940's as the idea for interregional high

Mines Road

Mines Road is an approximately twenty-eight-mile highway located in the rural parts of the Diablo Range east of the San Francisco Bay Area. Mines Road begins in San Antonio Valley in Santa Clara County and terminates at Tesla Road near Livermore of Alameda County. The highway essentially is a modern overlay of the 1840s Mexican haul trail up Arroyo Mocho known as La Vereda del Monte. The modern corridor of Mines Road took shape in the early twentieth century following development of San Antonio Valley amid a magnesite mining boom. Part 1; the history of Mines Road Modern Mines Road partially overlays the historic corridor used by La Vereda del Monte (Mountain Trail). La Vereda del Monte was part of a remote overland route through the Diablo Range primarily used to drive cattle from Alta California to Sonora. The trail was most heavily used during the latter days of Alta California during the 1840s. La Vereda del Monte originated at Point of Timber between modern day Byron and Bre

Former California State Route 41 past Bates Station

When California State Route 41 was commissioned during August 1934 it was aligned along the then existing Fresno-Yosemite Road north of the San Joaquin River. Within the Sierra Nevada foothills of Madera County, the original highway alignment ran past Bates Station via what is now Madera County Road 209, part of eastern Road 406 and Road 207. Bates Station was a stage station plotted during the early 1880s at what was the intersection of the Coarsegold Road and Stockton-Los Angeles Road. The modern alignment bypassing Bates Station to the east would be reopened to traffic during late 1939. Part 1; the history of California State Route 41 past Bates Station Bates Station was featured as one of the many 1875-1899 Madera County era towns in the May 21, 1968, Madera Tribune . Post Office Service at Bates Station is noted to have been established on November 23, 1883 and ran continuously until October 31, 1903. The postal name was sourced from Bates Station owner/operator George Ba